Nestle Allowed To Bottle The Arkansas River

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After years of negotiations, officials in Chaffee County, Colo. finally gave Nestle the approval to begin siphoning millions of gallons of spring water from the Arkansas River so that it can be bottled and sold under the Arrowhead Springs label.

Despite resistence from the Aurora City Government and environmental protestors, Nestle has spent the last few years buying up the land around the water, constructing pipelines, and building a pumping station Vista with hopes that they would be allowed to transport the water to Denver where it will be sold as bottled water.

Last Tuesday, the bottled water giant was finally allowed to start filling its fleet of twenty-five 8,000 gallon trucks and trucking the water hundreds of miles from the Arkansas River.

Residents who opposed the agreement know that removing this volume of water from the river and surrounding aquifers will have serious impacts for the watershed and nearby wetlands.

John Graham, president of the Chaffee Citizens for Sustainability (CCFS) recently told the Colorado Independent that water as clean as what Nestle will be bottling is available to almost everyone with a kitchen faucet for a fraction of the price.

Drinking tap water from reusable containers carries none of the environmental impact of the planned operation, which will log more than 6,000 miles a day at least on the road between Johnson Village and Denver.

Climate change in the arid Rocky Mountain West is already putting a strain on natural water supplies. If Nestle is allowed to remove 200 acre-feet per year, residents are worried that they’ll soon be dealing with a water shortage of their own.

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152 comments

If you're going to boycott all Nestle owned products, you're going to be boycotting an awful lot of stuff. Some of the most popular, and best brands of food items are owned by The Nestle Corporation, A Swiss owned/based company. Good luck at staying away from it all.

Add a filter to your tap water! Be environmentally friendly. Use your own 'steel' water bottle. Stop using bottled water in plastics which are adding to the 'great pacific garabage patch.' Try to buy your steel bottles from a U.S. manufacturer.
Companies, like Nestle, have been buying up water supplies around the world. Water should be a common good and not the privy of big business!! Write your congressmen/women. Enough is enough!

buy a reverse osmosis system and fill up your own metal and glass bottles...quick polluting the environment with all those plastic bottles and making this greeding company rich !..also dont buy any hersheys products either ..BUY FAIR TRADE !!

Not a problem, just as with everything else Nestle takes over, if you see an alternative product to the Nestle brand, choose it instead. If you see no alternative choice, and you know of one, try to contact the store buyer or department manager about it. the idea is to leave the junk with Nestle's label adorning it until the dust gathers on it and the spoil date forces it off the shelf. When the store loses money, they will act to rectify the situation.

meet our writers

Beth is a freelance writer and editor living in the Rocky Mountain West. So far, Beth has lived in or near three major U.S. mountain ranges, and is passionate about protecting the important ecosystems they represent. Follow Beth on Twitter as @ecosphericblog or check out her blog. less